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She is 5'9" tall, weighs 250. Her waist and hips both are 56". Most calculations are telling me she has 85-ish# LBM. for 250#, i find that to be way lower than i anticipated. she is inactive, however.

The same calculator is telling me i have 53# LBM, which I find hard to accept. My body comp has definitely changed in the past 2 yrs. At the YMCA, I was measured with calipers and came out at 18% (which i think was VERY generous!!!!). My LBM was 111. I am now about 12# heavier and have had to really cut back on my strength training so i do understand that i have lost muscle but that i went from 111 to 53?

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Most online calculators are bunk, but thats OK because you want to look at relative change. So just stick to one calculator and record your BF. Even if you don't get the correct BF% you will get the correct (or close to) BF% change.

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Thanks to both of you for your response. paleo_rob, I understand that I want to just use these as a tool and follow the trend. But I wanted to access my sister's (and to confirm my thoughts for myself, too) so I knew where to start her on protein.

I believed that a heavier person would have a lot of muscle in order to carry the bulk around, so I am surprised (even with this latest link) to find them stating she has about 85# LBM.

ETA - I also discovered the mistake I made on my own... When i multiplied actual weight times body fat %, I forgot to subtract to find LMB...

Perhaps I should start a new thread (or look around here more) to find suggestions on calipers, as I've seen many suggest getting a pair to check yourself (tho I can't imagine that is an easy task!)...

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I use this one and it seems to be fairly accurate for me. I was measured in a BodPod about a year ago and this one was only about 2 percentage points off from that. Other ones, like the linear link that was shared was 10+ percentage points off for me. The one I linked may be particularly better for your sister because it includes calf, thigh and wrist measurement. I find as a person with most of my weight in my belly, others are falsely high. I did one of the others, that didn't include the leg and arm measurements and it put me at 39% body fat. There is no way that is right, I am 28% by impedance and according to the link above about 26%. While those are not 100% accurate either, I think they are closer to the truth than 39% (you can follow my links to see pictures of me )

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Okay this one is more like it! All the others are about 10+ percentage points off like you said. They place me in a borderline obese range. Ha! I am clearly not obese. Not that I put a huge amount of stock in online calculators, but this one seems to be more accurate.

You don't have to be sick to get better.
Female, 31 years old, 5'8"
Primal start: 1/2/2012My Primal Journal
Living, loving and learning.